Jimmie Johnson clinches historic, record-tying seventh championship

With a rueful smile, he added, “I had to push it-I couldn’t go to bed tonight knowing I’d given him that lane”. “I don’t want to be anything extra to mess with Joey”. “I thought everything was going to work out”. Never the fastest auto among the title contenders on Sunday (in addition to Johnson, defending champion Kyle Busch, Carl Edwards and Joey Logano comprised the final four), Johnson worked his characteristically quiet magic all day, keeping himself in contention and laying the groundwork for a late move.

Another driver disappointed exiting Homestead is Kyle Larson, the non-Chaser who led 132 of 268 laps before losing the lead to Johnson on the final restart to finish second.

Logano finished fourth, and Kyle Busch, the defending Series’ champion, finished sixth. Edwards tried to block Logano on the restart, wound up wrecked, and it was Johnson who drove through the carnage to take the championship lead. Truex’s vehicle burst into flames.

“They put it in my hands”, Edwards said. 48 Lowe’s Chevy was chugging along from the very first lap when the team was pushed to the back of the pack because of an unapproved vehicle modification. “I just thought I’d have a little more time to correct it, but we were so far down there he couldn’t go any further down basically and we ended up wrecked”. How he won this thing tonight, I don’t think a lot of people know, he can will himself to get (his all) out of a auto when it matters. “I need to get to remember what that was like and get a glimpse and a view of how important this is, ‘ and it really was”.

Johnson seemed pretty overwhelmed with all the attention and even some of the love from fans he said normally “shoot me the bird”.

“I don’t know what the caution was for”, Edwards said. It was a really good restart.

Johnson quickly worked his way to the front of the field.

“Just didn’t think the race was unfolding for us like we needed to do to be the champs”, he said. His point standing took a serious drop with two accidents and a blown engine in three of the last five races.

The top finisher of the four wins the championship and over the past three Homestead races, the victor of the race took home the big prize as well.

After a 30-minute red flag, the race got back underway with Jimmie Johnson serving as the highest running Chase driver. On a night when he’d started last – his team was found to have manipulated the body of his vehicle after it had passed inspection – and clearly wasn’t as good as the other three contenders, he had somehow lucked into the lead.

But while Earnhardt got a Daytona 500 win, Stewart retires without one, having missed his last shot at a coveted win in 2016 because of a back injury suffered in January.

Larson wasn’t the only non-Chaser to spend significant laps up front.

Logano would end up fourth in the race and second among the Championship 4 as Jimmie Johnson won his seventh Cup title in a remarkable finish.

“I don’t know what the chances are”, offered Johnson, who naturally, was told about his owner’s new goal.

Johnson was forced to start the race from the rear of the field when his auto failed to pass pre-race inspection.

Johnson, from California, may not fit the old-school stereotype, but put him behind the wheel of a stock vehicle, and the competitive dynamics is as good as it gets. The second pit stop relegated him to 36th in track position.

“Oh my gosh; there is no, no way on earth”, Johnson said.

“It wasn’t exactly the way we wanted the day to go, but the race was fun”.

Clearly, Johnson and crew chief Chad Knaus had discovered a winning formula for the Chase format.

It took him three laps to pass 14 cars.

During the race he’d radioed handling problems to his pit crew.

The 45-year-old was celebrated on Sunday with a commemorative pace lap in which he led the field around the track prior to the start of the event.